grief is like the ocean
by thir13enth
Summary: some days are better than others. —shallura (ft. love, loss, and recovering)


for **shallurasundays** , prompt: home. sorry i'm late but i just love this prompt so much. i just couldn't live without doing it.

this is also for **jazzzasaruss** on tumblr, who had requested allura meeting shiro's family a long long time ago. i've finally come around to being able to write this. i hope you enjoy — and sorry again for the delay.

* * *

"grief is like the ocean;  
it comes on waves ebbing and flowing.  
sometimes the water is calm,  
and sometimes it is overwhelming.  
all we can do is learn to swim." — vicki harrison

.

.

She rests her head on his shoulder and brings her body close, sliding in against him between the sheets.

"Tell me about your father and your mother again," she asks him.

"My parents?"

"Yes," she says. She tilts her head up to see his face. "You told me your mother used to make you the most delicious lunches, and that you and your father used to watch a lot of…some sport where you hit a ball with a bat? Batball?"

"Baseball," he replies, almost wistfully. He turns his head down to her, continuing to play with the ends of her hair with his left hand. He looks up at the ceiling for a long time. "I hated that sport so much," he finally says, a small laugh at the end.

She furrows her eyebrows. "But you still watched it?"

"Watching baseball was the only time I would get to spend with my father," he explains. He pauses momentarily. "He worked a lot — even on the weekends."

Allura watches his dark eyes flicker. She takes a breath. "I didn't get to spend very much with my father either," she admits. "It made every second with him count even more."

He nods. "Yeah," he says. He looks back to check on her. He slowly lifts his free hand to touch her cheek, caressing her skin with metal fingertips. The words remain perched on his lips for a second, maybe two before he asks, "Are you okay?"

She nods. "I'm working on it," she answers. "Some days are better than others."

"And today?"

"You always help," she tells him, a small smile on her lips.

He returns a soft smile, then bows his head down to kiss her on the forehead. His mouth lingers at her temple, breathing over the shorter silver waves at the edge of her hairline.

"I know these things take time," she continues. "My father was important to me." She trails off, tracing circles on his chest with her fingers. "I'd like to meet them one day," she murmurs.

"My parents?"

"Yeah."

He gazes at her for a moment, then presses another kiss on her head. "You will."

This, he promises her.

.

.

And he's not one to forget.

She comes to Earth with him when the war is over, and he takes her straight home.

He stumbles through the keys on his keyring — he hasn't heard this familiar jangle in a long time, and he hasn't felt the sharp metal in his hand in a long time. He finally happens upon a key that doesn't look like one he's ever seen before, yet whose teeth and bronze-plating call attention from his eyes.

He decides this is the right key. He doesn't remember what the other keys open.

He almost forgets how to unlock the door. The Alteans are so much more advanced in their security technology — he forgets that there's a whole physical mechanism to inserting the key in, and then that he has to turn the knob at precisely the right time while leaning his body weight against the sturdy door to let the both of them in through the entrance.

It's like opening a time capsule.

Everything that he left is still in the same place:

The family photos along the hall — a little dusty after five years but still intact. The hallway closet, with all of his coats and jackets and umbrellas and boots, is half open. He can see just beyond the entrance to his kitchen — two plates, three bowls, and a mug still lying in the dish dryer.

There's still that broom and dustpan that he threw aside at the end of the hall because he was trying desperately to clean and take out the trash without being late for the Kerberos space mission, the last thing he left for.

He can hear the soft hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the living room analog clock. He smells a mix of his cologne, the aroma of finished wood, a touch of cooked rice, and just the slightest hint of incense smoke — there's no other way to explain it but that it smells like _home_.

"Tadaima," slips from his lips.

He hasn't said it in such a long time. His throat chokes.

"Shiro?"

She reaches out for his wrist, takes it in both of her hands. She can't tell the expression on his face. His eyebrows are furrowed, his eyes are glazed, his mouth is in a flat smile — she's not sure if this is nostalgia, heartbreak, gratefulness, all of the above, or none.

"Are you okay?" she asks, after he hasn't given her a word.

"Yeah," he croaks. He looks back at her and smiles, takes her hand and pulls her close. "Welcome home," he says, placing a soft kiss on her lips.

He withdraws but stays at her face and cherishing her eyes for a full moment before he bends down and pulls off his shoes. She does the same, and he throws both pairs onto the shoe rack by the door. Bare feet on wood floor, they continue walking down the entrance hall of his home.

"Come on," he calls to her, taking her hand.

He shows her around. She sees everything:

The second-hand couch in his makeshift living room with the bookshelf, lonely with only six stacked books, next to the television. One floor lamp standing right next to the couch, with only one lightbulb in the socket, the other two left empty. The small lacquered cabinet set in the corner — closed. The inherited wooden coffee table chipped along the edges at the center, a mug still on it — one that he scoops up in his right hand with a nervous laugh for having neglected it for years and takes to the kitchen.

She follows.

In the kitchen, an empty metal tea kettle on the stove, aluminum foil over the drip pans and across the wall directly across to catch hot oil or burned bits. He puts down the mug into the sink — the water lever turned in an odd direction because that's the only angle that would prevent the faucet from leaking. A wooden block carrying a knife set, Japanese characters engraved on the side. The small eating table in the back, pushed up against a wall with only one un-matching chair pushed up against it.

There's not much more to his home but hallways and closets. He takes her upstairs to his room. He opens this door for the first time in a long while and sees the state of his bedroom, and sighs in relief when he sees that it's acceptably clean.

She laughs. "Didn't expect to bring someone home?"

"Before you, I didn't think I even _wanted_ to bring anyone here," he simply replies.

She invites herself into his bed — queen-size and lacking a bedframe, the bottom mattress directly on the bare floor, only one pillow and one layer of blanket neatly spread on top. She rolls over it, her body wrinkling a surface that hasn't been touched in years. She turns to her side and pats the mattress space in front of her, beckoning him to join with a pat of her hand.

He looks around his room again first. He suddenly remembers that he has a small work desk in the corner, a cheap black rolling chair scooted up next to it, a small plastic stool underneath he used to use as a footstool. There's a lamp poised on the surface of the desk and a laptop — very outdated by now — closed next to it. He has ivory-colored blinds on both of his windows, one of the sets missing a slat. He pulls down the cord loop to let in the late afternoon sun.

Then he looks at her — the golden light accentuating the pink glow over her cheeks and the silver sheen of her hair.

He groans as he slides into bed, choosing to lie down prone, face-down inside of his folded arms as he releases all the stress from his back and just relaxes. The springs under his body weight creak and his bed sinks in a way that he recognizes in a distant memory, not the same as the weightless feel of his bed in the castle-ship.

"It still smells like you," she observes, her nose close to the mattress, "even if you haven't slept here in a while."

He opens one eye to look at her, then flips himself onto his back so that he can see her. He runs his hands through her hair, tucking a few strands behind her ear and leaving the rest so that he can play with her tresses between his fingers.

She traces circles onto his chest with her fingers.

"You live by yourself?" she asks.

He nods. "Yeah."

"And your parents?"

He watches her watch him for a moment. He thinks of the family photo in the hallway, the lacquered wood cabinet in his living room, the knife set in his kitchen, the overhanging smell of cooked rice and incense…

"Let me take you to them," he says, suddenly getting up from bed. He offers her a hand to help her up. "I'm sure they'd be glad to meet you."

She takes his hand.

.

.

She doesn't let go until he stops in front of a grave.

Suddenly the dried fruit and incense and white candles he took along with him, the fresh flowers he bought, the bucket that he filled with water near the entrance of the graveyard — everything makes sense.

"Oh," she breathes. "Oh, _Shiro_."

"Hm?" he looks up at her from his squat. He's picking at some weeds and some grasses that have grown over the base of the gravestone.

"You never told me," she says.

"I don't tell many people," he simply replies.

She thinks about her father and her loss, and then she thinks about his parents and his loss. She doesn't really know what to say, but she more than understands.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes. She squats down next to him, watches the expressions on his face. She touches his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

He looks serene. He nods, continue to pluck at the overgrowth around the grave.

"I haven't been around to maintain," he says. "This was the first thing that I wanted to do when I got back to Earth."

She nods. "I see," she replies. She reaches forward and rips out a stray grass that is crawling over the corner of the grave.

He looks over at her, watching her pull out another weed, and then smiles, turning back to eliminating the growth on his side of the gravestone.

Later, he gently scrubs the surface with the sponge, slightly dampened from the water in the bucket. He takes extra care to clean out the dirt that rests in the thin lines of the characters of his family name. He stands the candles and two sets of incense in a small porcelain container on the base of the gravestone, lighting the candles with the match, then the incense with the candles. Then he adds the bouquet of flowers into a freshly rinsed vase and a small plate of the dried fruits between the incense.

With a ladle, he pours water over the top of the gravestone. He does this a few times while mumbling apologies about leaving the grave so unclean over the years and assuring that he is now home and safe. He offers her the ladle afterwards.

"Me?" she asks.

He nods, with a small smile. "Yes."

She does so a few times, in the same manner that she watched him do it. Once she puts the ladle back down, he presses his hands together in prayer and she copies.

He talks softly in Japanese for a few sentences — she recognizes the words for mother and father only because she's heard him address them before in mumbles while he sleeps — before he switches languages.

"This is Allura," he introduces, looking over at her.

She hesitates for a moment, but then gathers herself together and tells his parents about herself — about being the last princess of Altea, the heiress of Voltron — and then she tells them about how their son became hero of the universe.

"I couldn't have done it without everyone else's help," he interjects.

"Your son is too humble," she retorts, continuing on with her story.

She doesn't realize that the incense has burned out long before until after she finishes.

"Oh," she gasps. "Sorry — I must have spoken too much."

He laughs. "I'm sure you explained better and with more detail than I would have," he replies, standing up. "They always complained that I never told them very much."

He bends back over to start gathering everything back up into his arms. She does the same, helping him by taking the bucket and ladle.

They leave the graveyard just as the sun sets over the horizon.

.

.

She still struggles with the seatbelt when they get into his car, fumbling to adjust the strap snugly around her body but still also fit the seatbelt into its buckle.

He chuckles when he sees her give up, leaning over to the passenger side to secure her.

"Good?" he asks her, after the seatbelt clicks in place.

"As comfortable as I could be while strapped in, I suppose," she replies.

He laughs, then turns her cheek toward him with his left hand and kisses her.

"Thank you for coming with me," he tells her.

"No, thank _you_ for taking me to see your parents," she replies. Then before he starts the car, she adds, "Why didn't you ever tell me? It…it would have been something we shared, you know?"

He hesitates. "I don't know," he finally admits. "I'm sorry. I guess I just felt that mentioning my parents would have devalued your father's death." He takes another moment to reassess his answer. "I don't know," he finally concludes.

She thinks on this for a moment. "How long ago?"

"The accident happened during my second year of cadet academy."

"It's been a while then."

"About eight years."

"Hm," she says. She knows her father passed more than ten-thousand years ago, along with a lot of time during which she rested peacefully in stasis — but her father's death felt like no more than a few years ago when she put the pieces together and found out that he was long long gone and that she was the one of the only Alteans left.

She chooses her words carefully. "Does it…get better?"

"Grieving?" he asks to clarify.

She nods.

"I'm working on it," he answers. "Some days are better than others."

Realizing he's quoting her from before, she asks the same question he did. "And today?"

He gives her a small smile. "You always help."

* * *

 **thir13enth**


End file.
